


The Great Mustache Caper

by i_claudia



Series: No Fear of Drowning [2]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Children, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Facial Hair, Gen, Silly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-02
Updated: 2009-11-02
Packaged: 2017-11-08 09:56:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/441960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_claudia/pseuds/i_claudia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Arthur and Merlin are in disguise on a top-secret mission, Uther is amused despite himself, and Morgana is incredibly displeased.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Great Mustache Caper

**Author's Note:**

> Because flammablehat shares my love for ridiculous facial hair, and wanted ficcage of a mad caper wherein Merlin and Arthur sport outrageous fake mustaches. The original inspiration for "No Fear of Drowning".
> 
> Originally posted on LJ [here](http://i-claudia.livejournal.com/36873.html). (2 November 2009)

“Quick, duck!” Merlin hissed, pushing Arthur to the floor behind the counter and tumbling after him. Arthur gave an undignified squawk and went down in a tangle of limbs and words Merlin was pretty sure his dad would ground him for life for saying. 

“Ow,” Arthur complained. “What was _that_ for?”

“The enemy,” Merlin told him. “They almost saw us.”

Arthur risked a quick peek around the corner. “It’s just Gwen getting into the biscuits,” he said dismissively, and pulled his hat out from under Merlin’s legs. “You crumpled it,” he accused, and Merlin pulled an aggrieved face.

“It was crumpled before,” he objected. “Mordred crawled all over it earlier and bent the brim.”

Arthur carefully straightened the blue Stetson on his head and cinched the cord tight underneath his chin. “You shouldn’t lie,” he told Merlin primly. “It’s not nice. Now come on, we’ve got to keep moving.”

They wiggled forward on their elbows, making their way slowly from the counter to underneath the table, and then, in a particularly exciting moment when Gwen’s back was turned as she picked up her ringing cell phone, darted from underneath the table to launch themselves over the back of the sofa. Arthur landed on top of Merlin this time, the hilt of his sword digging painfully into Merlin’s ribs, and they lay there on the cushions for a minute, breathing hard and listening for any sign that they’d been detected.

“Hi Lance,” Gwen said. “What? Oh no, I’d love to, but I can’t... yeah, I’m babysitting for Morgana’s dad. Maybe tomorrow night? Sure!”

Merlin squirmed underneath Arthur. “You’re squashing me,” he complained, and Arthur shoved at his shoulder hard just to be difficult before rolling off onto the floor with a quiet thump. Merlin pulled his bandanna back up over his mouth – it had slipped down around his neck when he’d landed on the soft leather of the sofa – and slithered down to sit next to Arthur. His bandanna promptly fell down again, and he gave up and just left it there.

“Okay,” Arthur said, breathless, “now to the hall! Run!”

They scampered out from behind the sofa and dashed to the hall as quickly as they could, ducking and weaving the whole way – just like real spies, Merlin thought proudly. They made it as far as the stairs before the front door opened. Arthur froze, and Merlin stopped just behind him, his shoulder pressing into Arthur’s as they listened hard.

“...was it?” Gwen’s voice came floating up to them from the kitchen.

“Fine,” Morgana said. “Absolutely fine, except that Gareth is about as interesting a conversationalist as a plank of wood and Leon didn’t even show up.”

It was too dark to see much of anything on the stairs, but Merlin looked in Arthur’s direction nervously. “Should we...”

“No,” Arthur hissed. “Definitely not, this just makes it more exciting. Unless you’re going to be a _wimp_ about it.”

Merlin elbowed him in the ribs. “I’m not a wimp!” he whispered back, but he reached up anyway to check his mustache, make sure his disguise was still firmly in place.

There was nothing there. He felt his bandanna – the mustache had fallen off earlier and had stuck to it – but it wasn’t there either. Frantic, he patted down his whole body, but the mustache was gone. “Arthur,” he said, a little desperate now. “Arthur, I’ve lost my mustache!”

“Seriously?” Arthur asked. “Aw, man, those were new; they were from my birthday! I knew I shouldn’t have let you wear one.”

“I’m _sorry_ ,” Merlin shot back, miserable. “It’s not like I was trying to lose it!”

“Feel around on the floor,” Arthur ordered. “Maybe it just fell off or something and it’s right here.”

Merlin was doubtful about that, but he knelt down obediently and ran his hands over the smooth wood of the floor. “There’s nothing here,” he protested, “really, it’s gone—” He stopped. Something had stuck to his hand, something small and scratchy and mustache-shaped. “Wait, I’ve got it!”

Arthur let out a huff of breath which Merlin knew meant he was going to be insufferable about things. “Well, it’s a good thing at least one of us has the wits for spying, honestly, Merlin, you’d make a terrible James B...”

“What is it?” Merlin asked when Arthur trailed off. “Arthur, what?”

Arthur muttered something Merlin was absolutely positive his dad wouldn’t approve of, and said, “Mine’s gone too. Stupid mustaches, the glue on them must be terrible.”

“Oh right, now it’s the _glue’s_ fault.” 

“Shut up, _Mer_ lin, and look around for my mustache.”

“Why can’t you look for your own?” Merlin asked, and avoided the kick Arthur aimed at him with the ease of long practice.

“Because you’re already down there, obviously,” Arthur said. “Hurry up, we’re running out of time.”

Merlin found Arthur’s mustache easily, and Arthur stuck it back on with a sigh of relief. “Okay, now we can keep going. This is the most dangerous part of the whole thing, so you’ve got to stick close to me.”

“Shouldn’t you be sticking close to _me_?” Merlin complained. “A ninja-sorcerer-cowboy is a lot scarier than a knight-cowboy.” 

Arthur thought about it as they crept further up the stairs. “No,” he decided. “Knight-cowboys are definitely scarier and more awesome than ninja-sorcerer-cowboys. Besides, you’re scared of Morgana. Bet you’d run away as soon as she looked at you with her evil stare.”

“You’re scared of her too! Like last week, when she told you she was going to rip the stuffing out of your dragon if we ever put honey on her hairbrush again...”

“I thought we weren’t going to talk about that! Besides, Slash is safe at your house now, Morgana can’t get to him.”

Merlin would have kept arguing – ninja-sorcerer-cowboys were _definitely_ cooler and awesomer than knight-cowboys – but they’d reached the top of the stairs, and their target came into view. They stopped to consider it, a little breathless from anticipation. 

The door was benignly beige, with a small, violently purple plaque that warned them to _KEEP OUT OR ELSE_ , but Merlin knew better than to trust in appearances. Behind that door lay dangers beyond comprehension: traps to catch and dismember the careless explorer, the heads of previous trespassers displayed on spikes, magical snares to catapult them into a different dimension, possibly even a doomsday device set to destroy the planet the moment someone tripped the switch.

“Ready?” Arthur whispered, and Merlin swallowed back a whimper before nodding. They padded forward, and Arthur very bravely made Merlin turn the door handle. 

Merlin squeezed his eyes shut as he opened the door, hoping madly that whatever ravening beast came to attack them would decide he was too small and bony to bother eating.

It was sort of a disappointment when no such beast appeared, but Arthur nudged him forward anyway and they crept into the room, Merlin nervously checking his mustache to make sure it was still firmly attached. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought it was just a normal bedroom, with a four poster bed covered in some sort of gauzy white thing and a vanity with a mirror bigger than his window at home. 

He did know better though: to let his guard down in Morgana’s room meant sudden, painful injury.

Arthur was busy digging through a bunch of papers he’d found in Morgana’s desk drawer. “Maths, history essay, maths, boring note from Gwen, more maths, physics... Where does she keep them?”

“Probably not with maths,” Merlin said, poking cautiously at the make up littering the vanity. He didn’t think his mum had a third of the amount of make up Morgana used. Probably not even a quarter. “Maybe under her bed?” he suggested, thinking about the old pyjamas his mum had wanted to throw away. He’d hidden them under the loose floorboard in his room; they weren’t _ratty_ or falling apart, they were just well-loved. If he had world takeover plans, he’d hide them in the same place.

“Hmm,” Arthur said, giving the bed a cursory look. “You look. I’m not crawling under there.”

“Why am I always the one who has to crawl under things?” Merlin complained, but he crouched down and peered under the bed.

Arthur prodded him in the back with the tip of his sword. “Because I have the sword, so I’m standing guard. Now go.”

Merlin went, still grumbling. They hadn’t turned the lights on, and while the streetlight outside the window lit the room enough to see things, it didn’t do much to illuminate under Morgana’s bed. He sneezed. “There’s nothing here,” he called back out to Arthur. “Just dust.”

“Rat turds,” Arthur said, with feeling. “We’ll just have to keep looking. Come on back out.”

“I’m trying,” Merlin said, trying to squirm his way backward, and sneezed again. As he did, something brushed against his face, and he stopped dead, his heart beating wildly. _Oh no_ , he prayed, _no, no, don’t kill me, please don’t send me to another dimension_... 

Whatever it was ignored him entirely and dropped onto his face to try and smother him. “Arthur!” he yelped, thrashing around and hitting his elbow hard on one of the wooden slats of Morgana’s bed. “Arthur, help!” The creature had a tentacle around his throat now, and was doing its level best to strangle him.

Arthur grabbed his ankles and yanked, and Merlin bumped his forehead on the floor but he didn’t really care because Arthur was fighting the monster now, tearing it off of him, and Merlin could breathe again.

When Merlin felt sufficiently recovered to look at Arthur, Arthur was holding the creature up, regarding it with something like wonder in his face. His hat had fallen off in the battle, but the creature had definitely come off the worse in the fight, Merlin decided: it was in two pieces, and it almost looked like...

“ _Knickers_ ,” Arthur breathed, an unholy grin breaking across his face. “Morgana’s’ _knickers_.”

Merlin couldn’t keep the nervous giggle from slipping out. “No,” he said in disbelief, even though the longer he looked at the black scraps of creature the more it did look like knickers. “Morgana’s kn... kn...” he stumbled over the word with another stifled snicker, “— _things_ , they’re made of steel or something.”

“Nope,” Arthur said gleefully. “Definitely lacy knickers. _And_ ,” he announced, brandishing the other half of the creature. “Her _bra_.”

“Shh!” Merlin said, steadily losing the battle against his laughter completely now that the creature had been proven to be harmless.

“Don’t be such a spoilsport, Merlin,” Arthur told him, his face stern, and threw the bra – _bra!_ Merlin’s mind giggled, _Morgana’s bra!_ – at him. Merlin flinched out of the way, and the bra landed on his head, a strap snagging on one of his ears. 

Arthur looked at him for a moment, blinking, and dissolved into helpless laughter. Merlin leapt at him and wrestled him to the ground, helped along the way by Arthur getting his legs tangled in his sword. “Gerroff,” Arthur protested between gales of laughter, but Merlin clung to him and refused to budge, steadily working Morgana’s knickers out of Arthur’s grip.

When he finally freed them, he jammed them down over Arthur’s head, pulling at them until they nearly covered Arthur’s eyes. Arthur yelled and struggled and finally managed to free himself, but before he could exact his revenge Merlin was up and running, making for the high ground of the bed.

Somewhere in between the chase and Arthur trying to destroy Merlin by beating him over the head with the sword, they discovered that Morgana’s bed was both well-stocked with pillows and extremely soft, and all remaining concern Merlin had about staying quiet vanished.

He’d just given Arthur a really excellent hit to the stomach with one of Morgana’s throw pillows when the door flew open to reveal Morgana herself, looking shocked but quickly progressing on to fury. Arthur stilled beside him, and Merlin became suddenly, acutely aware that Arthur was wearing Morgana’s _knickers_ on his _head_ and that he himself still had her bra draped around his shoulders.

Morgana’s outraged face could have given Arthur’s dad a run for his money. “You little—”

They didn’t stay to find out what exactly she thought they were, bolting out the door and evading capture by Gwen, who was lurking sneakily behind Morgana. Arthur was still laughing, but Merlin kept his head down after one of Morgana’s stilettos hit the wall dangerously close to his head.

“Come on,” Arthur gasped as they pounded down the stairs, Morgana and Gwen hot on their heels. “Front hall; there’s a cupboard, locks from the inside.”

They skidded around the corner in their stocking feet, and Merlin’s heart gave a leap of triumph – there it was, the cupboard which was going to save them from an untimely, undoubtedly bloody death at the hands of Arthur’s sister – before the front door swung open in front of them and they slid to a halt in front of a very bewildered-looking Hunith, with Uther close behind her.

Arthur teetered, one foot still in the air as the four of them looked at each other. “Um, hi Dad, Mrs Emrys.”

“What’s going on here?” Uther demanded, but there was a funny look on his face, like he was trying to keep from smiling.

Just then, Morgana rounded the corner of the hallway, a vision of terror. Merlin only barely resisted the urge to hide behind his mother, taking another step closer to Arthur instead. 

“Tell them,” Morgana said, pointing a quivering finger at Merlin and Arthur, “to _stop messing with my stuff_ , or I am seriously going to strangle them in their sleep.”

“Morgana,” Uther began, and stopped, frowning as he stared at the knickers adorning Arthur’s head. “Is that...” He stopped again, and gave Morgana a look that practically screamed _we will definitely be having an uncomfortable talk about why you own a pair of knickers like that later, young lady_. “Arthur, take those off your head and give them back to your sister. And what – what on _earth_ do you have on your face?”

Arthur took the knickers off his head, pouting and trying his very hardest to look dignified. “It’s a mustache,” he said, wounded. “Can’t you tell?”

Merlin’s mother wasn’t quite quick enough to hide her laugh, and Merlin realized that Gwen was leaning up against the wall behind Morgana, trying to conceal a smile in the crook of her arm. Uther reached up to smooth a hand over his face, the corners of his eyes crinkling in amusement. Arthur looked at Merlin in concern, since everyone around them seemed to be going mad, and while Merlin gave him a puzzled look back there was definitely something odd about Arthur’s face, something slightly off that set his mind buzzing.

Arthur’s hair was the same, a little mussed from the knickers; so too were his ears and eyebrows and mouth, and the shirt he was wearing was the same shirt he’d had on earlier, no surprises there. In fact he looked the same as always, except for the big mustache on his...

 _Oh_ , Merlin realized.

“What is it?” Arthur hissed, and Merlin shook his head, pointing to his own mustache. Arthur’s eyes widened, and his hand flew up to cover the enormous black mustache bristling on his upper lip.

“On the stairs,” Merlin whispered helpfully. “We must have switched them in the dark.”

“You mean _you_ switched them,” Arthur shot back. “You look awful in blond.”

Merlin scowled at him, but Arthur was busily reevaluating their situation. “Quick,” he told Merlin under his breath. “Make your kicked puppy face.”

Merlin felt like that deserved a little outrage. “My kicked – I don’t have a kicked puppy face!”

“Excellent,” Arthur said. “Keep it up.” Merlin looked around bemusedly, and didn’t notice much of a change except that Morgana seemed to be noticeably less quivery from anger, and seemed to be fighting off a smile.

“No one can resist your kicked puppy face,” Arthur went on excitedly. “It’s the perfect way to get out of trouble! I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before.”

Uther cleared his throat, and Merlin jumped. He’d forgotten Arthur’s dad was standing so close. “You are not allowed to use your friends as secret weapons,” Uther informed Arthur, and when Arthur pouted, he added, “Apologize to your sister.”

Morgana looked smug, and Arthur fixed his father with a pleading gaze.

“Apologize,” Uther insisted, “or we’re not going out for ice cream.”

Merlin turned back to Arthur beseechingly. Arthur _knew_ how much Merlin loved the triple-chocolate fudge brownie ice cream at the shop, and he knew that Merlin’s mum didn’t really believe in eating sweets.

Arthur held out for less than five seconds of Merlin’s silent, focused begging. “Fine,” he grumbled. “’M sorry.”

Merlin beamed, and Uther held the door open for them. “Mustaches,” Merlin heard him mutter as they dashed by him. “What will they think of next?”

**Author's Note:**

> ...Okay so I am less than pleased with the ending but this was supposed to be like 300 words, tops. THREE HUNDRED. haha yeah like that _ever_ happens with me ~~Also I have this vision of a later Merlin and Arthur where Hunith and Uther aren’t married but they’re living relatively contentedly together and Arthur _still_ can’t resist Merlin’s kicked puppy look and is also sort of maybe really attracted to Merlin, which is weird and wrong because Merlin is a guy and also like a brother to him in all but name, but he just has all these _feelings_ and after an evening of poor life choices they maybe end up snogging on the couch a little and things get really awkward for a while before they get fantastic and maybe Arthur is a little jealous and a little turned on by the fact that Merlin can grow a real mustache and he can’t, dammit, but then Merlin shaves off his new sideburns and 'stache because they’re making Arthur insecure and Arthur realizes he actually liked Merlin’s hair the way it was, all of it, AND CLEARLY I HAVE SPENT TOO MUCH TIME THINKING ABOUT THIS. I AM GOING TO STOP NOW.~~ GOOD NIGHT ALL.


End file.
